Andries Both

Christiaan Kramm, Utrecht (L.581)

Unframed. Window mounted. A tiny ilght brown spot at the upper part of the roof near the upper right corner. Otherwise in excellent condition, the medium strong and the paper clear.
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Andries Both, the highly talented elder brother of Jan Both, was born in Utrecht, where he studied with Abraham Bloemaert, whose stylistic influence is very evident in this lively drawing. By 1633, Both was on the way to Italy, whence he never returned; in 1642, at the age of only twenty-nine or thirty, he fell in a Venetian canal and drowned.  Though most of Both's surviving landscape drawings reflect the impact of his stay in Italy, a few are also known that must, on grounds of both style and subject matter, have been executed before his journey south.  Some of these drawings are in pen and ink while others, like this, are in black chalk, but all are very reminiscent of Bloemaert's technique and compositional approach, with their detailed depictions of humble cottages and barns, rendered with a swirling pattern of parallel strokes. A signed pen drawing of this type is in Amsterdam, and similar works in chalk are in Leiden and in the Dutch Royal Collection.¹

1.  See E. Haverkamp-Begemann, 'The Youthful work of Andries Both: his landscape drawings', Tribute to Wolfgang Stechow. Print Review Number Five, New York 1976, pp 91-4, figs. 4, 6-8.